The office that I work in is only a year old. It is in a very nice looking, new building and has all the amenities that one needs when it comes to office life -- air conditioning, heating, kitchen, parking, etc. This and its prime location on Al-Bireh Municipality Street cause most people to ooh and aww at it when they initially see it. Despite how it may look on the outside this office is basically crap. The central heating doesn't work and when it does is only turned on for 2 hours a day (yes, we do need heaters in Palestine -- the winters are cold!). The air conditioning system does not cool things down in a sufficient manner and is turned off at the hottest times of the day. The internet is sporadic. We have no hot water. The elevator doesn't work. The parking is so poorly planned that my boss has to maneuver at least 50 times just to get into her parking spot. This, and we are paying a ridiculously large amount for it. All these things combined have made it necessary for us to start looking for a new office and I must tell you what an adventure it has been.
In Palestine there are no tools to advertise for real estate or office space or apartment rentals. In the U.S. we have agents, websites, offices, magazines, etc. that are specifically for this purpose. Here, there is no avenue like this that one can go through when trying to sell property. Instead what we do is call. We call everyone we know. Perhaps they have seen a sign. Perhaps they work somewhere with an empty space. Perhaps they overheard someone talking about it. If calling doesn't work, we walk. We walk around asking the tenants of each building if they know of any available offices or buildings. If we see someone in the street we ask them. It is crazy, but it is normal.
A couple of days ago Mithqal and I were on a mission to find a new office. I called O to see if he knew of anything available in the area by his office on Irsal Street. Low and behold, he did... and he had a number to call. After contacting this gentleman, we made a plan to see the place. So, at the end of the day, Mithqal and I hopped into a taxi, went up to Irsal Street, and so began our quest. The first place we looked at was a huge office (280m2). Although the size was just right, unfortunately the fact that it didn't have parking was a problem. We thanked the man for his time and then scoped out a line of nearby buildings. We slowly approached them looking for someone who may know more. We spotted 3 elderly gentlemen sitting in a line, smoking nargileh outside of the 2nd building. Mithqal approached them and one of them just happened to be the owner. Wow, what do you know?! So he took us into the 1st building up to the 3rd floor where we viewed a small and quite dirty office. It was no good and wouldn't be suitable for what we are looking for. We said our goodbyes and going on another suggestion from O we walked to a different building in the area in hopes of having luck there. We were able to find what would be the equivalent of a "supe," who told us that there were no empty offices.
Undefeated, we walked back up to Irsal Street where Mithqal stopped to ask a woman for directions to the "mall" and also if she knew of any places that had offices available. What do you know? She did! She pointed us in the right direction and we were off again. We found the building and were immediately impressed. It looked brand new and was in a good location across the street from the Ministry of Finance. We couldn't find anyone to talk to, so we decided to do some exploring ourselves. We headed up to the top floor where there was a wonderful, spacious empty office that hadn't even been finished yet that we could explore. This particular office had a huge balcony and the 360 degree views of Ramallah were fabulous! We then walked down to the floor below us where there was an office already in place. We were able to finally get a hold of the building manager who showed us the rest of the empty offices. The spaces were very bright and well-constructed and the cost was very affordable. This, in addition to what we thought was a good location and secure underground parking made it thus far our top choice. We decided to call it a day, but not before calling our manager to let her know what we found. Unfortunately the location of the office was not to her liking. So... the search is still on.
No comments:
Post a Comment